Despite the date stamp, I'm writing this post the day before Brian returns to work after being home for 2 weeks straight (I started uploading the pics on Friday!). We're kind of bummin' so it's nice to re-live some of the fun we had over the holidays. I haven't counted the pictures in this post yet, but I'm warning you all that there are a lot of them (with an added warning that I still have to post the pics from the neighborhood New Year's Eve party OR the Children's Museum New Year's event). I really don't have anything to say by way of introduction so....PICTURES!

A few days before everyone started arriving, the older boys and I made sugar cookies (like Grams wasn't bringing enough sugary goodness with her!) Logan and Aiden did a really good job helping me cut everything out!
I bought these cookie cutters as a part of a little holiday baking set in the Target "one-spot" dollar section....oh how I love the one-spot!

And thank you Ikea, for making colored bowls that help me coordinate my frosting! I also used these bowls last year to coordinate our Easter egg colors in my very first post ever!

There was a lot of taste-testing involved...

For weeks, our tree sat barren underneath because of last year's "present incident" (Logan and Aiden...then only 17 months old) opened most of the gifts I put out and I had to re-wrap everything. This year, I decided to make them "part of the action". We started with daddy's gifts. I wrapped them on the island, put tags on them and then had the boys carry them into the tree. This one was heavy so they sang the WonderPets theme song and did it together.

Logan took this picture. This is my hand and I think the general meaning of this gesture is along the lines of "these are not your gifts. these belong to daddy. these are not toys. do not open them....do not pull the bows off" And guess what? They didn't! (I can't vouch for Brady on this one though...he did some bow pulling.....)

Twas the night before Christmas and we went outside to sprinkle the reindeer food

Here, Nana helps Aiden sprinkle the oats ALL over the lawn instead of in just one place....

...like they did on the front walkway.

The snow was so deep and crunchy from the previous week's ice storm that Aiden was having a hard time walking around. Nana picked him up and made the job a bit easier.

Logan did a great job on his own! Right before they went out, daddy gave them new Bear's winter hats that he bought before attending the following Monday's FREEZING cold Packer's/Bear's game. Oh and, by the way, all this snow melted a few days after Christmas and, when I went outside to take down some lights, the boys followed, saw the food and asked me why the reindeer didn't eat it all. I told them that there are so many boys and girls who leave food that they get pretty stuffed. I said that it looked like quite a bit of it was gone though!

Back inside, we readied the cookie plate for Santa. I love these little white plates I have...you can write on them in washable marker and rub it right off later. This is my impromptu Santa plate and Logan putting on the first cookie.

Aiden adds his cookie.....

Easy there Auntie Denna! Those are for Santa. (I tried to upload this picture like 5 times and could NEVER make it turn the right way). Tilt to the left.....now....

WAIT! I think I got it! I am NOT (completely) blog-challenged!!

TA-DA! Yes...I know I'm pretty lame....taking a picture of my hand holding a plate....see future post on the job of the family historian.

"yep....I think that looks good"

So....after HOURS of wasted efforts and like 60 horrible pictures of the boys....I FINALLY got a Christmas-card worthy picture with one click....on the night before Christmas....after the cards had already been mailed. (Look Den - Brady is doing like "blue steel" in this one, right?!)

Christmas morning! What did Santa bring? A "cake" for Aiden! This thing was in a learning catalog and A circled it like 20 times. You can "write" on the top of it with a frosting thing and it also contains all these little blocks inside that you can press down and make imprints on the orange part. Also, notice that his "chilling with my hommies" pjs didn't last the night. He woke up soaking wet!

This was Bear's big gift from Santa. All the boys play with this one now!

Santa brought Logan transformers! These were bane of our existence for a while, but Brian helped me reverse engineer them and now I can made cars or robots on command!!! (these are the kinds of things I need to know when he's out of town. There is no "daddy will fix that when he gets home"!)

This is the only picture I got of the chairs! Nana and Papa gave the boys all new Pottery Barn Anywhere chairs (Logan thinks his is new, but it's just got a new GREEN cover on it). I was the MOST excited about this gift. They really do love them. I took a cute picture the other day of everyone in their chairs. Oh don't worry....it will be posted Nana! (and then yes....I'll upload it to Shutterfly for ya!)

GG and GGpa gave Logan and Aiden firefighter raincoats and boots to play dress up! They even came on these adorable matching hangers.

This was my genius idea that didn't quite pan out like I thought it would. Since Bray is still so little, and since we do NOT need more toys for little boys under the age of 2 in this house, we thought it would be funny to wrap up three boxes of Kleenex and let him pull the tissues out one-by-one like he has with other boxes on other occasions. He pulled out a few, but I have most of these tissues still in the box.

Here is Auntie Denna with "the Matthews" (Ryan Matthew & Brady Matthew). I love how Bear is patting Ryan's head. He's saying "hey there bes fren"

This was Aiden's favorite gift....a play-doh station that makes ice cream, cakes, & cookies! He used to always pretend to make cakes with his regular play-doh so this is like a dream come true!

I love playing with this one too!! There is a sprinkle maker on one side that spits out these tiny little dots. The kit came with a container of white doh that has these little confetti in it that you're supposed to use to make the sprinkles.

This was another one of Aiden's gifts - an Imaginex Jungle. Brady really liked it too!!

That a boy Bear - get that kleenex!!!

Brady and GG have a serious discussion.

This was Brady's big gift from Memaw and Grandpa. It hooks up to the TV and has all these cute little games. Bray rides on it (as do Logan and Aiden) to make different characters on the screen jump over fences and dance.

Ok....well that's it for Christmas. No pictures of food...no pictures of me or Brian opening gifts...mostly just the kids.....the way it should be!! :)